Posted on 09/17/2010 5:20:15 PM PDT by Bean Counter
I stumbled across this very well done set of three videos the other day and I know a number of Freepers will be interested in viewing them.
There are a lot of urban legends and improper methods out there for what should be a simple and humane way of harvesting the food God gives us. I am putting this up strictly as an educational tool, and so I have a bookmark for it myself.
This young man is demonstrating the proper way to humanely slaughter a meat bird, and it is a handy skill to at least be familiar with.
Certainly not for everyone, but many will be interested in how to do this properly and humanely.
Part 2...Dressing the bird
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHqxnkaCgkk&feature=related
Part 3...breakdown and deboning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBn5i-1Yyg8&feature=related
Meanwhile near Kalamazoo Michigan, a duck with an arrow through it has eluded DNR attempts to capture it so it can be treated.
Count me in the camp that says its time to stop wasting time and money and put the poor thing out of its misery.
The quickest and most humane way to kill a chicken(with many years of doing so when young behind me),IMO,is to cut its head off with an axe. Wringing it’s neck works but has to be painful. As for dressing a chicken that isn’t hard to figure out either.
I didnt watch the whole thing, but the way we did it on the farm was to use the butt of the ax to first stun the chicken on the head, and then one chop to the neck on a log (head pulled between two nails) to remove the head. Worked great, but not a particularly fun day. One has to take a state of mind that this is God’s gift to us, and get it over with.
Is that more humane than chocking your chicken? Actually, that seems to be a less humane than just lopping its head off. I remember my granny use to put one foot on each wing and just lop the head off and hold it down until it quit flopping.
:)
With chickens we would knock them out with the back end of a hatchet and then cut the heads off on a log we kept for just such a purpose. We also used the same log as the base to split fire wood with an Axe.
Lopping it’s head off is the number one worst way to slaughter a chicken, and that’s why I put this video up. I’d explain to you why, but I doubt you have any interest in watching the vids, or hearing why you don’t just grab the hatchet.
Thanks for sharing though...
LOL I bet nobody ever gave granny any back talk.
I once watched my grandfather wring the necks of a couple of mean-ass roosters.
He grabbed them by the head and with the flick of a wrist & blink of an eye there were 2 headless roosters dancing in the dirt.
I remember my grandmother, in northwest Kansas, picking a hen up by its head, raising her arm, and swinging it around two or three times until the neck snapped. Sounds gruesome, but it was quick and it worked. (PETA wasn’t around then.)
She made the best chicken and noodles (home made) I’ve ever eaten.
I think I need some practice at that...tommorrow I will go out and pluck up liberal and see how it works. I think it wise to practice on liberal before inhumanly harming a poor chicken. Liberals and chickens have much in common.
bookmark
I remember Granny missing just a little high one day. Chicken’s head was off, but a tiny piece of brain was still attached. Stupid thing ran around for two days (yes, like a chicken with, etc.). Everybody left it alone, and got a poll going to see how long it would stay up.
My Mother was the kindest, gentlest most loving person you could imagine. I can remember when we lived on a farm, she would wring chicken’s necks just as easy as pie.
It was just the way she was raised (on a farm). She was not capable of being cruel to even an animal but she had no compunction about killing them either. If we eat meat, we also kill animals, just not personally.
The bird is quite dead by the time you dunk her in the water. At least she better be or you’ll have your hands full of mighty mad hen...
The idea is to kill the bird with as little pain or fuss as possible. When you lop off the head, the bird aspirates blood, and that triggers a massive jolt of adrenaline which is why the bird runs around until it has sprayed all of it’s blood out and it collapses.
However...
Chickens stay dry because they can fluff up their feathers, right? Ever see a chicken fluff itself up to twice it’s size, then slowly deflate back to normal? They do that because their nervous system allows them to tighten their skin, almost as if it were another whole set of muscles in effect. The quills of their feathers are buried in the skin in a fairly deep socket, so when they tighten their skin, they grip all of their feathers and they lift up on end.
When you panic the bird by lopping off it’s head, the bird’s primal nervous system takes over, the skin gets as tight as it can, and grips the feathers tightly, even after the bird finally dies. That makes de-feathering a class a SOB. You’ll end up plucking each feather out with a pair of needle-nosed pliers instead of by hand like that young fellow in the video was doing.
The part about the knife to the brain is called “de-braining” and it disconnects the brain from the rest of the nervous system and kills the chicken instantly. The small cut on the neck is almost painless if your knife is sharp, and a calm chicken is a tastier chicken, mainly because you can get the feathers off.
Just sayin’....
Granddad could haveve done that without breaking a sweat. Come to think of it, grandma could have also.
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